RIP: Tony Sheridan, Beatles collaborator

Tony Sheridan, the singer and guitarist who collaborated with the Beatles during the band’s early days in Hamburg, died on Saturday at the age of 72, the UK’s Telegraph reports.

Sheridan met John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Pete Best in Hamburg’s red-light district in the early 1960s when the young group came to see his act every night after their own shows at a neighboring club. Sheridan took the band under his wing, advising them on their look (which at the time included black leather bomber jackets and cowboy boots) and introducing them to American R&B acts like Little Richard. The Beatles eventually served as Sheridan’s backing band at the Top Ten Club and cut their earliest recordings accompanying him as the Beat Boys on recordings of “My Bonnie” and “When the Saints Go Marching In.” (The album they recorded was later released outside Germany as Tony Sheridan and The Beatles.)

Shadow Morton, a songwriter and producer who for a brief, luminous period in the 1960s poured the discontents of adolescence into original hit songs, including “Leader of the Pack” and “Remember (Walking in the Sand),” died on Thursday in Laguna Beach, Calif. He was 71.

The cause was cancer, said Amy Krakow, a family friend.

By all accounts possessed of a brazen, naïve genius — he played no instrument, could not read music and wrote his songs in his head — Mr. Morton was almost single-handedly responsible for the wild success of the Shangri-Las, the Queens girl group he introduced and propelled to international stardom.

Pioneering DJ and producer Mark Kamins, who was instrumental in facilitating the signing of Madonna to Sire Records in 1982, has died. According to BlackBook, on Feb. 14, he suffered “a massive coronary” in Guadalajara, Mexico, where he has been teaching. Word spread on Facebook, where many friends of the Downtown New York City scenester posted remembrances. The particular poignancy of his passing is surely the marking of the chronology of those connected to the incipient development of the biggest musical star of our time – the mortality surrounding the cultural immortal that is the Queen of Pop.

In a statement to The Hollywood Reporter, Madonna writes: “I’m very sorry to hear about Marks death. I haven’t seen him for years but if it weren’t for him, I might not have had a singing career. He was the first DJ to play my demos before I had a record deal. He believed in me before anyone else did. I owe him a lot. May he Rest in Peace.”

Well, I just looked up “ceramic” and “dog” on Wikipedia, and full disclosure, I am no closer to understanding what a “Ceramic Dog” is. Apparently it’s got something to do with the French phrase “chien de faïence,” but, seriously, who even speaks French? I can tell you one thing though: whatever it means, it’s got layers, man.

There’s obviously a lot going on here. According to Ribot, the band spent nearly two years trying to get the album just right. He says:

If you listen closely, you can hear the rage, hope, disappointment, ritual excess, love and anarchy that were in our personal and collective airspace during those years.

For those of you who did better in school than I did, there’s even more to hear:

The astute listener will note our wry comment on the contradictions of producing a recording during the collapse of the industry which once paid for recordings to be produced (“We are the Professionals,” “Masters of the Internet” and the attached manifesto).

That’s right! The album comes with a manifesto! But wait, there’s more:

The very astute listener with really expensive headphones may hear the water pipes in the basement on Rivington and Allen where we recorded about half the tracks (the guitar amp isolation booth looked a lot like a bathroom).

And, apparently, if you have just the right kind of stereo and stand just close enough to the speakers in your living room, you can hear Marc Ribot’s soft voice whispering things like, “You think that’s a guitar solo? That’s pathetic. Check this out.” Bose store here I come!

Listening to Ducktails’ newest album The Flower Lane, you might notice a couple of standout characteristics. One: the lo-fi aesthetic typical of Matthew Mondanile’s previous work under the moniker has essentially been abandoned, and two: unless he has a surprising talent for altering his voice so that it sounds undeniably feminine, Mondanile seems to have found a few cohorts to contribute to his previously, almost strictly, solo project. The female voice might be Madeline Follin or Jessa Farkas, depending on which track you’re listening to, and the album itself offers all kinds of extra-Mondanile credits, including Joel Ford, Daniel Lopatin, and a few multi-instrumentalists. It’s all for the better, I say; The Flower Lane is easily my favorite Ducktails album.

Assuming I’m not alone in my thinking, you may be interested to know that Ducktails (meaning Mondanile and several of his creative companions) are set to tour the US at the beginning of March. Along the way, the band will play shows with Alex Bleeker and the Freaks, Merchandise, Mark McGuire, and more. Check out the dates below, just after the seemingly deity-sent DJ Sprinkles remix (barely, it seems) of “Letter of Intent.”